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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26639863">All I Have To Do Is Dream</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/pseuds/theweddingofthefoxes'>theweddingofthefoxes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adult Language, Alcohol, Background Techienician, Choking, College AU, Cousin Rey, Fluff, Getting Lost, Happy Ending, M/M, Prophetic Dreams, References to Canon violence, References to past trauma, Vacation AU, past lives au</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:42:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,688</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26639863</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/pseuds/theweddingofthefoxes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben and Armie are college students who meet while vacationing at a lake. They swear they've met before, but have no common friends or experiences. Ben has always had unusual abilities, but meeting Armie brings them out in full force. Who did they used to be?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Kylux Big Bang 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All I Have To Do Is Dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It is Monday, and everyone other than Ben is drunk.</p><p>He mentions that he’s going to go take a walk, just a quick one, and no one seems to pay much attention other than Rey, who smiles and nods, her eyes not quite looking in the right direction, and then turns back to the drinking game that she and the others are playing, a circle of playing cards facedown around a can of beer. Ben had been the only one to not already know the rules and so he’d hung back and no one seemed to care.</p><p>This seems, he thinks, indicative of how the remainder of the week will go.</p><p>It hurts more that no one is mean. In fact, everyone is nice, really, genuinely, truly nice. They are all fun, cheerful people who were happy to let Rey’s cousin tag along after a different friend dropped out of this trip to the lake house. Rey had suggested he go so they wouldn’t all end up having to pay more than they’d planned for their shares of the rental, and he wasn’t doing anything else, sure, it would be fun, why not. But everyone here knows each other too well. There are already so many inside jokes and references and stories built into their shared fabric, and even on the ride here, Ben felt awkward asking for any context, though Rey would try to provide it if she noticed he was lost. She really was trying, Ben thinks. It wasn’t her fault that she was having fun with her friends…</p><p>But there is a second reason that Ben said yes to this trip, and that is the lack of light pollution.</p><p>After Ben leaves the open living room-dining room combination where everyone is laughing and shouting and racing to be the first one to do whatever rule the cards say you need to do, he heads downstairs to the room that he mercifully has to himself. It’s technically meant to be shared -- there’s a top bunk to the bed-- but it’s an odd number of them staying here, five people, so he gets the third bedroom to himself, and the adjoining bathroom. It’s here that he’s spread out all of his stuff already, even though they’ve only been in the house for a few hours, clothes and books, a pair of swim trunks, and of course the telescope.</p><p>This is Ben’s pride and joy, his most beloved item besides his car. The car is new, sleek, and black as the Batmobile, but this thing is old. An heirloom from his grandfather, who he never met but who he lives in awe of, who he heard a million stories about as a child. It’s pretty powerful, but he had never had a chance to use it outside of the city where he and Rey and their friends all live. Even when you drive an hour, out to the farms and the old abandoned boy’s academy grounds, you still can’t see too much, the city light is just too strong. But the lake is distant enough and sparsely populated enough that Ben is expecting good results. The most crowded spot anywhere around here is a gas station that doubles as an old-timey burger stand, like something plucked out of the fifties, and even it has no power against the vastness of the natural night.</p><p>By the time Ben gets out of the house and up the hill that overlooks the lake (though now, of course, it’s hard to see much of anything besides the faint reflection of house lights on the water), he feels a million times better. The sky feels as though it has cracked open, like an egg, starlight oozing out thick as yolk in a dazzling whorl. The feeling of being ignored, of not fitting in just right, it’s nowhere to be found. He’s too amazed.</p><p>It would be okay to be alone here, he thinks. He feels less alone here out on this hill, somehow, than he did in the room full of people.</p><p>Ben’s trying to locate Venus, which is supposed to be bright tonight, according to his favorite astronomy app, when he hears a sound like someone is dragging an old broom on a sidewalk. He’s well within bolting distance of the house, and he could hold his own in a fight, so he’s more puzzled than alarmed. “Hey?” he calls, and it comes out as a question even though he doesn’t really mean for it to.</p><p>“Hey!” came a response off to his left.</p><p>The speaker is a guy about his age, maybe a little older, holding a big branch with the leaves dragging on the ground. He is making this sound on purpose. “I didn’t want to, you know, sneak up on you,” he goes on. “I was just out. Out of my house.”</p><p>“You sound like...extremely suspicious,” Ben says, unable to stifle a laugh as he says it.</p><p>Even in the low starlight, he can tell the stranger with the branch is blushing. “My brother and his boyfriend are, uh, loud,” he confesses. “I don’t think they realize how loud they are.”</p><p>“No shit?” Ben can’t help but laugh again, and thankfully, the guy laughs too.</p><p>“They didn’t even hear me knock on the door and yell.”</p><p>“Oh, that’s absolutely not true. Is he older or younger?”</p><p>“Younger.”</p><p>“Yeah, see? That was on purpose. They probably planned this.”</p><p>“Well, I hope they like it here, since I’m considering driving home without them. Peace and quiet.” He wraps his arms around himself so he’s touching the opposite elbow with each hand. “How did I get talked into third-wheeling my own vacation? I’ll never know.”</p><p>“God, same.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“I’m here with my cousin and her friends,” Ben explains. “They’re all getting wasted right now.”</p><p>“Why not you?”</p><p>Ben shrugs. “It wouldn’t help. I’d rather be out here right now.” He pauses. “Though I guess I could have brought some beers.”</p><p>“You brought enough.” The stranger indicates to the telescope. “I bet that’s gorgeous, looking through that thing.”</p><p>“Want to see for yourself?”</p><p>Ben can’t exactly say why he just hands the telescope over to some complete stranger simply because he asked. It’s not just old; it’s also one-of-a-kind, and even if the guy is good-hearted enough to not steal it, there’s always the chance that he’ll break it by mistake. But it never occurs to him to say no. The stranger takes it gently, like he knows it’s important.</p><p>“Oh my god,” the guy breathes, almost immediately. “I should have brought my binoculars or something -- this is incredible. Even better than the planetarium at Arkanis, you know, the one up on the ninth floor?”</p><p>Ben frowns. “You go to Arkanis? I didn’t know they had a planetarium.”</p><p>“What?” The stranger lowers the telescope to study Ben instead. “That’s -- I could have sworn I’d seen you on campus. You look so familiar.”</p><p>“No, sorry. I’ve never been to Arkanis, though I’ve heard, like, you need to be really smart to go.”</p><p>“Well.” Clearly Ben’s companion has chosen to take this as a compliment. “I really did think you were in one of my classes. Like, English or something. Or maybe a history class?”</p><p>“I go to Twin Sun U,” Ben explains.</p><p>“Huh. You must have a twin out there.”</p><p>For a split second Ben is tempted to answer, my mom’s a twin, which is true, but invites the notion that he has a lost twin brother out in the world that he’s somehow never heard of. Instead he just shrugs.</p><p>“I must have one of those faces.”</p><p>“Oh, that is bullshit. You do not.”</p><p>“You’ve barely seen my face.”</p><p>In response, the stranger lifts the telescope to his eye again and makes a show of looking Ben over with it.</p><p>“I’ve seen what I need to. You’re unique.”</p><p>Ben just laughs because he doesn’t know what else to say.</p><p>They take turns passing the telescope back and forth, and Ben points out a few interesting things he can see. The guy -- his name is Armitage, he says, though Armie is fine -- knows a bit about astronomy, can find a few of the most well-known constellations, but he seems genuinely impressed by Ben’s knowledge. It gives Ben a little layer of warmth that somehow feels welcome when he realizes how intelligent Armie thinks he is, even though it’s already warm and humid out.</p><p>“There’s Venus,” he tells Armie, pointing.</p><p>“Where?”</p><p>“Look.” He leans in close to help Armie guide the telescope the right way, and when he does he can see how Armie’s eyelashes are so pale they are nearly white. For some reason this is the signal that makes his brain identify how powerfully infatuated he already is, the eyelashes, one eye wrenched shut and the other peering through the lens. Like this, hopefully, Armie can’t see the look on Ben’s face. Helpless, perfectly helpless.</p><hr/><p>It is Tuesday morning, and at breakfast, Rey wants Ben to tell the story about the dream.</p><p>“Oh, it’s-- it’s silly,” he says, around a mouthful of cereal.</p><p>“Ben has always has prophetic dreams,” Rey announces to the others, and Ben is both fond of how radiant she is when she says it, how truly proud, and also embarrassed at how much like a performing little dog he feels.</p><p>“Well, not every night.”</p><p>“Don’t be so modest,” Rose says, pouring ketchup onto her eggs. “I want to hear what she’s talking about.”</p><p>“So Ben was three when I was born,” Rey starts, like she’s forgotten that she wants Ben to tell the story in the first place. The three year age gap feels wildly present right now, because no one here seems to be hung over, despite the fact that they had all been completely fucked up the night before. If Ben tried that kind of thing now, he wouldn’t be out of bed yet, and he certainly wouldn’t be bustling around the kitchen making scrambled eggs and toast and Eggos the way these four were. “And everyone thought I was going to be a boy. They’d already picked the name and everything.”</p><p>“The story goes that the ultrasounds weren’t super clear, but I guess they thought she was a boy,” Ben says.</p><p>“But Ben had a dream,” Rey adds.</p><p>Ben stirs his cereal, letting the milk soak up all the artificial coloring. “Well, yeah. I dreamed that she would be a girl.” He pauses. “So they say. I don’t actually remember this at all. But I guess I told my parents, every time they were like, oh, are you excited to play with him, I’d say ‘no, she’s a girl, I had a dream about the baby girl’.”</p><p>“And so it became a whole thing,” Rey announced, pleased. “Everyone was shocked when they found out Ben was right.”</p><p>“So did you ever do that ever again?” Poe wants to know.</p><p>This is a tricky question. Ben is quite deeply attuned to his dreams, and he is a fervent believer in their meanings. He has also dreamed so vividly about strange, futuristic worlds that he really does think that they are memories of the future, or of a past from another dimension, maybe. But he also knows how completely insane that sounds, and it’s a particularly sore spot for him. People thinking he’s weird or crazy or full of shit -- that’s one of his biggest fears, and his biggest trigger for anger. He feels like he’s made a wish on the cursed monkey’s paw, because now everyone is interested in him and he wants it to stop.</p><p>“Small things,” he says lightly, and that’s true. “I’ve dreamed of where missing items are and found them. Once I found twenty dollars because I dreamed there were two tens under the couch.”</p><p>The story has its intended effect, which is to be impressive while not inviting too many more questions or seeming too bizarre. Soon Rose brings up a dream that someone she knows at college had about their grandfather dying and the attention gently shifts away from Ben. By the time all of the dishes are clear, the topic has changed completely, turned now to the plans for the day. It seems as though everyone is planning to go for a hike in the hills, and then stop at the burger stand for lunch once they’ve built an appetite back up.</p><p>“Are you coming, Ben?” Rey wants to know.</p><p>“Oh, I already told my friend Armitage I’d go down to the lake with him.”</p><p>“Oh, that’s so cool! What perfect timing.”</p><p>It’s not until Ben’s actually making his way to the water that he realizes why Rey said that. She thinks that Armitage was already a friend of his, from school or something, who just happened to be here at this lake at the same time as them. Sure, he’d said it fairly casually, but Rey does not hesitate to remark on something that surprises her, and she seemed to wholly accept his friendship with this person that he’d met literally twelve hours before.</p><p>He thinks back on Armie’s comments about Arkanis.</p><p>Maybe they’d met somewhere else? Maybe camp, or…</p><p>All thoughts of where they could have possibly met before vanished when Ben spots the trio down by the pier. A young guy -- maybe nineteen or so to Armie’s twenty-two or twenty-three -- sat on the pier itself, his long golden-red hair falling down around his shoulders. Nearby, a taller, tanner guy with a mop of blonde curls was wading out into the water, calling back to the others, something that Ben couldn’t quite make out. Clearly, this is the brother and his lunk boyfriend, the ones who had so serendipitously gotten Armie out of the house the night before. And finally, there was Armie, so deeply slicked up with sunscreen that he appeared to be iridescent, a big pair of sunglasses covering the upper half of his face.</p><p>“You’ve gotta be Ben,” the young redheaded guy calls, once Ben was close enough.</p><p>“That’d be me,” he says.</p><p>“No one else would get Armie outside at before dusk.”</p><p>Armie snorts. “I’m not a vampire.”</p><p>“He’s basically a vampire,” his brother calls.</p><p>Somehow, these strangers are easier to mesh with than his cousin and her friends. He feels a little bit bad thinking that, but it’s just -- it’s natural. Talking to the brother and the boyfriend (Brennan and Matt, respectively) is effortless, and Armie, he’s...even more effortless. They make each other laugh a lot. Armie seems proud by proxy when Ben mentions he’s at Twin Sun because that’s Brennan’s number one pick for college, he’s hoping to hear from them this month about attending in the coming fall. Once Brennan gets his fill of questions about the school, though, he and Matt wander off into the water while Ben and Armie stay on the pier, talking, talking.</p><p>The thought will not leave Ben’s mind: <em>I know him.</em></p><p>But maybe that’s just how it is with people you’re meant to be friends with, isn’t it? Isn’t that always what people say, that it feels like they’ve known each other forever? Ben’s never experienced this himself. But people like Rey, people who make a lot of friends easily, that’s what they say.</p><p>That’s what Brennan says too, laughing, when he’s not distracted by how handsy Matt is.</p><p>“It’s like you guys have been friends forever.”</p><p>Armie looks like he wants to shrug it off, but he can’t help but blush a little, and even the way he reaches for his metal water bottle -- taking a swig to hide his face -- is wholly endearing.</p><p><em>Kiss me<em>, </em></em>begs the voice in Ben’s head, but maybe Armie doesn’t hear it, but that’s okay. Instead he says, “It’s nice not just being by myself.”</p><p>That’s almost as good.</p><hr/><p>It is Wednesday night and Ben is on the porch, lost in his thoughts, when Rey comes back and sits next to him on the porch swing.</p><p>“Hey,” she says, sounding, somehow, bouncy and unsure at the same time.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>“Are you having fun?”</p><p>“Oh my god, yeah.”</p><p>“I’ve hardly seen you, which...well, that’s not a problem.”</p><p>“The less of me the better, right?” He says this with no venom, truly, and she laughs, knowing it.</p><p>“Exactly. That’s why I invited you along, so I could avoid you as much as possible.”</p><p>“Right, you just wanted me to be like, the Phantom of the Opera, but at your lake house.”</p><p>“But I really do want to know.”</p><p>“If I’m having fun?”</p><p>“Yeah. You paid to be here, so…”</p><p>“And you don’t want me to give you a low score on the email survey.” He chuckles. “Yeah, I mean. I’ve been enjoying my time with Armitage.”</p><p>They’d been together for almost the entirety of the last few days. They’d stayed at the pier with Brennan and Matt for hours, but then when late afternoon bore down, they’d gone up to the Armie’s cabin. Matt and Brennan lagged behind to dry off, and Armie and Ben ended up playing checkers over and over, just talking, just enjoying each other’s company. The conversation had gone back to Ben’s telescope, and then to stars, and astronomy classes, and astrology apps. Ben believed, Armie didn’t.</p><p>Finally Ben caught up and had won the same number of matches as Armie had, and he believed Armie when he said he hadn’t just let him win. They moved to the sofa and watched TV in comfortable silence, and Ben might have even worked up the courage to ask to kiss him if Brennan and Matt hadn’t returned just then, clearly having worked up some courage of their own while they’d had the privacy. Perhaps feeling bad about the interruption, they offered to take Armie and Ben for ice cream at the gas station burger stand, and Ben let them. They’d packed into Matt’s ancient Toyota Matrix, which was somehow still running despite its worn body and mashed rear bumper -- “Some asshole clipped me in a McDonalds,” Matt had said.</p><p>“Someone going a hundred miles an hour in a McDonalds?”</p><p>“You’re not far off,” Matt grumbled.</p><p>“The trunk doesn’t even close right,” Brennan offered.</p><p>So Ben hadn’t gotten back to his place until late on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday Armie had, almost shyly, texted again to see if he’d want to hang out again, and of course Ben does. They’d just stayed on the porch swing at Armie’s place while Matt and Brennan went swimming again.</p><p>Ben was feeling safe enough to tell Armie about his dreams by then. How often he would dream about things that would happen, or how he would glimpse consistent other worlds, if he was just making it all up out of his subconscious it was awfully regular and detailed. He had confessed to Armie how he felt so strongly that his own dreams showed reality, or another place and time in reality. Instead of laughing Armie had been rapt, because it was weird, yes, but weird in a way that fascinated him, and even though Armie had seemed so serious and studious it just made sense that Armie would believe him. Telling him felt, yes, it felt safe. Easy.</p><p>He hadn’t gotten a kiss that evening, either, but Armie had dozed off on his shoulder on the porch swing. The cabin that Armie was staying in must have been built by the same builder, Ben had thought, because the patio was laid out just the same way, with the same swing in the same color. Ben stayed where he was in lovely silence for a long time, the way he might if a cat curled up in his lap. He watched the sun go down and when it was true dusk, Armie stirred.</p><p>“Dream anything?”</p><p>Armie had laughed, groggy. “Nah. Not yet.”</p><p>“You should keep a dream journal.”</p><p>“What if I forget?”</p><p>“Keep it by your bed.”</p><p>“My dreams are always stupid anyway,” Armie had said, stretching so the porch swing wobbled. “I can’t like, see the future.”</p><p>“Let yourself be open to it. You won’t if you just decide you can’t.”</p><p>“Mmm.”</p><p>They’d said goodnight, and Ben still felt dreamy and gentle and had just gone right back to his own place and sat down in the exact same spot in the twin porch swing. He’d only been there for about ten minutes when Rey had plonked down to make sure he was doing okay.</p><p>“So he’s like your <em>thing</em>?” Rey asks.</p><p>“What do you mean?” Ben wants to know, grinning.</p><p>“That smile! That mean he’s like, your <em>thing</em>.”</p><p>“I don’t know what thing means.”</p><p>“Your thing, you know?”</p><p>“Clearly, I don’t!”</p><p>She’s laughing helplessly now, and it’s making him laugh too.</p><p>“Well, whatever, I know what I mean. Look where we went while you were out.” She pulls out her phone and begins showing him an impressive array of pictures of herself and the others at the cabin, all standing or sitting in a forest clearing dotted with long, shallow, lumpy table-shaped rocks, all big enough for two or three to sit on. “It’s the coolest place. We all got a lot of good pictures. Poe said we should do a seance or something there, but that would be -- so freaky, wouldn’t it?”</p><p>“Yeah, it definitely looks haunted. But in a good way. How’d you get there?”</p><p>“It’s off the trail. You just go up the hill from where all those signs for the bike paths are and then it’s down in the valley right on the other side.” She cocks her head. “Looking for a good makeout spot or something?”</p><p>“I’m not going to comment on these allegations.”</p><p>She laughs again, and he feels compelled to say it, now: “Thanks for inviting me. Really.”</p><p>“Well, maybe it’s not the reason I thought you’d have so much fun, but I do what I can.”</p><p>Rey slides back off the swing, letting the whole thing, just like before, wobble and rock while he tries to steady himself with his foot. “Are you gonna come play one game with us, then? I already told them you can drink them under the table and you won’t prove me right.”</p><p>He glances at his phone. Nothing from Armie, he must be fast asleep. Maybe even dreaming about him.</p><p>“Sure. Why not?”</p><hr/><p>It is Thursday morning and Armie is being different in a way that Ben can’t quite put his finger on. They’ve met down by the lake again, but the weather is overcast, chilly, almost, and so everyone else at Ben’s cabin is hiding out in the den, watching cooking shows and drinking coffee.</p><p>Armie is wearing a black hoodie with red stripes. Ben didn’t think to bring any hoodies. Just as well. Ben brings him some chips and Armie says thank you but doesn’t open them. He seems like he both desperately needs to say something and also dreads saying it.</p><p>“Everything good?”</p><p>Armie nods.</p><p>“Did you have a good night?”</p><p>“I had a weird dream.”</p><p>“Oh yeah?” Ben has to rein in the urge to be excited. This couldn’t be better timing, except...clearly, it wasn’t a good dream.</p><p>“I don’t--Ben, do you really think they mean things? They mean the future or whatever?”</p><p>“Well, there are a lot ways to interpret them, like--”</p><p>“Ben! I’m asking. Yes or no?”</p><p>“Generally, yes.”</p><p>Armie’s face flickered, and it took him a minute to finally be able to say:</p><p>“Then I don’t think we can see each other any more.”</p><p>The thought that rings piercing-loud in Ben’s head is: You caused this. He doesn’t know how, but he feels like there is no other explanation. He’s caused something bad to happen.</p><p>“Armie? Wait, I--hold on. Tell me, you know, tell me what the dream was about.”</p><p>When Ben instinctively steps forward, Armie backs up at exactly the same speed, and it would look cartoonish if it wasn’t so heartbreaking. Ben forces himself to jam his hands into his pockets so he won’t reach out and risk watching Armie flinch.</p><p>“Tell me.”</p><p>Armie holds himself tight and flat as if his back is against an invisible wall. “It was us in the dream,” he begins, low, almost too low to hear. The lapping of lake water is almost louder. “But we were older. Maybe. I dunno. Ten years older. But it was also the future, not just with us being older, but like...it was like we were in a different time and place. In a future world.”</p><p>Ben goes cold, because he knows this time and place, even if he cannot identify it. He’s seen it before.</p><p>“And when I tried to tell you something, I think -- I think we were fighting? But when I tried to argue, or tell you not to do something, you lashed out at me, and it felt like--” Armie falters, his voice skidding into a whine. “I could feel it. It was the most real dream I’ve ever had. Like I couldn’t breathe. You didn’t want me--you wanted to hurt me.”</p><p>He is breathing so shallow, like just remembering it is making him suffocate.</p><p>“It was so real,” he says again. “I’ve never dreamed anything that real. It’s--if you’re right about all of this dream stuff, Ben, then. I can’t.”</p><p>“Armie. There’s a lot of stuff that it could mean.” He wants to sound comforting, authoritative, breezy enough to chase away those fears, but instead he sounds desperate, he can hear it in his own stupid childish voice. “It might just mean that you’re afraid of something, of something that -- that I represent, I guess.”</p><p>Armie’s eyes are wild.</p><p>“Of you.”</p><p>“You aren’t afraid of me. No.”</p><p>“Ben! Stop telling me what I think!” He takes another step back.</p><p>“No, I’m just--”</p><p>“Just stop!”</p><p>It might help if he tries to make himself less of a threat, Ben thinks. He takes a step back too, his hands still tightly shoved into his pockets, his shoulders slumped like he can somehow make himself shorter. It does not seem to calm Armie in any noticeable way.</p><p>“I’ve been afraid before, Ben. This made me...this made me very afraid.”</p><p>“It wasn’t me,” Ben says softly, not hiding the hurt in his voice. It isn’t fair. It’s not. He didn’t do anything.</p><p>“But what if -- what if it isn’t yet?”</p><p>“You sound <em>crazy</em>.”</p><p>“You’re the one who told me all this shit was real, Ben!” Armie is shouting now, his voice no doubt ringing clear as a bell across the water, reachable to the people on the opposite shore.. Ben aches to know that everyone vacationing at the lake right now is certain that Armie hates him. “That was you! You were the one who said that, and now you’re taking it back because you don’t like what you hear? Fuck off!”</p><p>Then there is no sound at all, except for the soft lapping of the water against the legs of the nearby pier, once Armie leaves -- probably he wants to storm off, except he really is clearly so shaken up by the experience, he is not moving like a person trembling with fury but with fear, off like a deer just born back to his own cabin.</p><hr/><p>It is Thursday afternoon and Ben is dreaming.</p><p>In reality, he is sprawled in the bottom bunk in his mess of a room, which he has made no attempt to try and tidy even though they’re leaving first thing on Saturday morning. He didn’t want to talk to anybody even if they were going to be nice, and he didn’t want to think about the fight, so the only thing left to do was just strip off his pants, take a nap, and hope that he’d feel better afterward, that the right words to say would emerge out of the fog once he woke groggy. But then the dreaming came.</p><p>At first he thinks it’s about Armie. He feels like he is staring into a foggy mirror, and he can only see the broad strokes, rock formations, trees, a flash of red hair. But soon he can make out a little bit more, and he realizes the hair is too long, the body too narrow. That brother. Yes, it must be him. Brennan.</p><p>In the dream, Brennan sits on the largest flat rock in a scattering of flat rocks, and it is just barely possible to tell he is crying, though he’s trying to keep that quiet.</p><p>Flat rocks. Like the place in Rey’s pictures.</p><p>Ben wakes with a gasp and almost immediately rolls out of bed, landing directly on his ass, as if he was trying to get a running start in his sleep. Luckily, there’s a layer of scattered clothes to cushion his fall somewhat.</p><p>He gets up and grabs his phone. There aren’t any messages for him from Armie, which he expects, but he gets an answer immediately when he texts <em>Are you looking for your brother? </em></p><p>
  <em> What? Is he with you? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> No, but I know where he is. Can I meet you by the dock? </em>
</p><p>Armie does not seem to care that, just hours before, he essentially told Ben that he never wanted to see him again. He says yes, and then adds another message telling him to hurry, but Ben is already hopping back into his jeans like a fireman on call. He somehow manages to not trip on the telescope on his way out the door, and he nearly runs smack into Rey, who’s holding a glass of Coke. A good half of it sloshes out directly onto her sweater, and she gasps.</p><p>“God! Ben, what the fuck?”</p><p>“Not right now. I need to go.”</p><p>“What? Where?”</p><p>“Armie’s brother is lost--” He doesn’t even bother finishing the sentence, he’s out the door onto the lower deck, again underdressed for the chilly day but he doesn’t even feel the cold right now, the adrenaline is burning away in his stomach like the tip of a match. She doesn’t follow him or question it any more, to her credit. He’ll explain it all later.</p><p>By the time he reaches the dock, the sun is slanting down just the right way to make Armie’s hair look like burning gold. Matt is behind him, scuffing at the ground with his foot exactly like a bull.</p><p>“Ben.” Armie’s voice is clipped, tinged with real fear.</p><p>“It’s my fault,” Matt blurts out. “We were walking through the woods, and-- he said he’d catch up and I believed it, but then I got back here and he -- fuck!”</p><p>He kicks the dirt, sending a scatter of stones and twigs flying.</p><p>“Do you really know where he is?” Armie asks.</p><p>“I’m not --” Ben’s voice is still thick with sleep. “I’m not fucking around with you, Arm--Armitage. I’m not. I know where he is. I saw.”</p><p>“Saw--?” Matt starts to ask, but Armie holds up his hand to stop him.</p><p>“Show us.”</p><p>The walk feels, Ben thinks, exactly like a test that you have studied for for weeks because you are so worried you will fail. He knows exactly where he’s going, but with every moment that passes before they get where they’re going, he feels more nervous that he’s somehow wrong. That they will end up in the place that he has so confidently led them, and they will see the flat rocks that he saw Brennan sitting on, and no one will be there. He does not say a word, listening instead to Matt and Armie bicker.</p><p>“You should have waited,” Armie is saying.</p><p>“I <em>know</em> I should have waited, I already said that!”</p><p>“Well if you know, why didn’t you do it?”</p><p>“It was just for a minute, I swear to god.”</p><p>“There’s no way it could have just been a minute!”</p><p>“And besides, he’s not like, four! He’s almost nineteen!”</p><p>“Okay, well, his age doesn’t make him any better at directions, Matt.”</p><p>“Shh.” They’ve come to the part of the walking trail where the sign for the bike paths is posted on a wooden pole, displaying different paths named after different birds. Sure enough, there’s a big hill just ahead, almost too steep to climb -- but there’s a faint path made by the feet of those like Rey and her friends who are adventurous enough to check it out. “Do you hear him?”</p><p>Matt cups his hands around his mouth and calls Brennan’s name, so loud it sounds like the leaves are going to rattle off the trees.</p><p>The three of them stand still as bird dogs, listening.</p><p>“Yes. I hear him. Fuck.” Matt whips around to look at Ben. “Where?”</p><p>“Up the hill.”</p><p>Somehow Matt manages to careen forward with enough force to get up the steep slope, while Armie holds onto the tree branches to follow, a little more slowly. When he stumbles, Ben grabs his arm, and Armie doesn’t yank away, although that might just be self-preservation more than anything else.</p><p>At the crest of the hill, Ben can see down into the valley, where all of the wide flat rocks in Rey’s pictures sit scattered, and standing on one of them is Brennan, his cheeks sunburned and his ponytail ragged but seemingly unharmed. Matt runs down the hill just as fast as he went up it, skidding near the bottom and sailing down a few feet in an awkward rockstar slide. He hops back up, now with grass stains on both knees, and runs right for Brennan, who has climbed down off the big rock to meet him.</p><p>“Are you okay?” is the first thing Brennan asks.</p><p>“Am--I--what? What about you? Bren, I’m sorry, I didn’t--”</p><p>“No, I was the one who told you--”</p><p>It’s so much darker now. The sun has just about fully set, and the sky is lit with pink streaks that are gently dimming into indigo. Armie and Ben have gone down the hill more carefully by now, and they’ve caught up.</p><p>“My phone’s at the cabin,” Brennan keeps saying. His voice is a little raspy, like he was crying not too long ago and not enough time has passed to hide that fact. “I would have called you guys but it’s at the cabin.”</p><p>“I know. I know, Brennan,” Armie says. “It’s okay. I’m just glad we found you.”</p><p>“I just panicked. I didn’t even have my phone.”</p><p>“We’re not far,” Ben says, hoping he sounds more reassuring than he did this morning. “We’re only about ten minutes from where you’re staying.”</p><p>“Ten minutes. Yeah. I would have called, really. But my phone.”</p><p>“I’m going to take him back to the cabin,” Armie says, his voice low and tired, like he’s only just realized how much ground he’s actually covered today, and how much his emotions have been through the wringer. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Are you okay getting back?”</p><p>Ben nods, and makes no attempt to touch Armie, but at the last second, right before turning around to catch back up with Matt and Brennan, who have already started making their way up the hill, he wraps Ben in the fastest hug in the world, tight enough to be real, though. Then he’s gone.</p><hr/><p>It is Friday morning and Ben wakes from his (thankfully dreamless) sleep to a barrage of texts and one Venmo request. His palms sweat as he opens them, they’re all from Armie, all of them -- except for the Venmo one, that’s from Rey, and she wants twenty bucks for “your clumsy ass wrecking my sweater”. Well, he’ll worry about that later. He delves into the texts instead. They’re all written like Armie was submitting an essay for school and he wanted to make sure they were as eloquent as possible.</p><p>
  <em> Ben. I was just so shaken up, I was so worried about Brennan, that I couldn’t properly express my thanks. I am taking back what I said about not wanting to see you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Though I guess I understand if you don’t want to see me, after how I’ve been acting. But I do want to thank you, if nothing else. I want to thank you in person and tell you how grateful Bren is, too. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But more than that, I wanted to apologize for my behavior yesterday morning. </em>
</p><p>Well. He did make good on that promise to talk to Ben tomorrow, didn’t he?</p><p>For some reason he clears his throat, like he’s about to dictate a speech, and then he crafts a response, still all wrapped up in his blanket.</p><p>
  <em> Hey, yeah, let’s talk in person.</em>
</p><p>Armie responds so quickly that Ben can barely comprehend how he’d been able to read the message.</p><p>
  <em> Are you free now? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeah, let’s meet now. </em>
</p><p>It’s nicer out than it was yesterday. Still cool and cloudy, but less bitter, or maybe the mood is just better, the tension broken like ice in the springtime. Ben makes his way down to the pier, even though Armie didn’t say to meet there, he knows it’s the place to go.</p><p>Sure enough, there’s Armie, the breeze ruffling his hair.</p><p>“How’s Brennan?” Ben calls, and Armie sighs.</p><p>“He’s fine. He gets lost so easily, like...literally what is he going to do when he gets to college? He’s never going to find his way around. But at least then he’ll be surrounded by people who can like, help. I don’t know what possessed either of them.” He coughs. “And, yeah. I don’t know what possessed me, either. Yesterday morning. God, it already feels so long ago. But yeah. I’m so sorry, Ben.”</p><p>Ben isn’t quite sure what to say, at first. It seems disingenuous to say that it’s okay, because it wasn’t okay. Before he can say anything, though, Armie just barrels on.</p><p>“I was right about one thing. It did feel real. But that’s -- I don’t know. I told you that I’ve been afraid before and that’s true. I’ve had some experiences that….” He suddenly looks deeply uncomfortable.</p><p>“You don’t have to tell me. Really.”</p><p>“Maybe not right now. But all you need to know is, I think that’s why I overreacted. But I don’t, I’m not making excuses, you know?”</p><p>“I don’t think you’re making excuses,” Ben says, settling so he’s sitting on the pier instead of just awkwardly standing in front of Armie like they are two gunslingers waiting to draw. Sure enough, Armie sits down right next to him, testing, it seems, how close he can get.</p><p>“Well, thank you.” He coughs primly. “Maybe that wasn’t the future. Maybe we just didn’t get along in another life.”</p><p>He’s clearly trying hard to make light of it, inviting Ben to do the same, and Ben accepts the offering. “Yeah, maybe in our last lives we were enemies. A fight to the death. But all grudges get forgotten when you start over in a new life, I bet.” He glances over at Armie. “You know I’m just talking out of my ass right now, right?”</p><p>“Oh, and here I was believing every word.”</p><p>“All right, I take it back. We definitely used to be enemies, but then someone decided that it would be funny if we liked each other in our next life.”</p><p>“But sometimes we still remember. In dreams.”</p><p>“Exactly.” Ben shifts so he’s sitting a little closer, so their legs are brushing together. “But it’s all bygones, you know.”</p><p>“Second chance, maybe. Maybe we just became enemies over something stupid.”</p><p>“Yeah, see?”</p><p>Armie grins, then sobers a little. “So you do forgive me?”</p><p>Ben’s tempted to joke, to ask why he’d be doing all this if he didn’t actually forgive him, but it occurs to him that Armie is really asking because he doesn’t know. This is a story for another time, he knows. He’ll find out eventually.</p><p>“I forgive you, Armitage.”</p><p>Armie considers this for a moment.</p><p>“Then come play me in checkers again.”</p><hr/><p>It is Saturday and Matt is hauling bags into the busted trunk of the Toyota Matrix. He has a circle of duct tape around his wrist like a bracelet. Apparently, that’s what he uses to secure the trunk, “just in case.” Brennan isn’t doing much to help, just standing around drinking one of those bottled iced coffees and chattering. When he sees Ben coming up the driveway, he beams.</p><p>“Ben! Guess what?”</p><p>“Oh, I’ll never guess.”</p><p>“I just got a call from my dad. Letter came in the mail.” He uses his free hand to flourish an invisible envelope. “Accepted. Full ride. To Twin Sun.”</p><p>“Full ride! Goddamn.”</p><p>“Hopefully he’ll keep you from getting into too much trouble,” comes a voice from behind Ben.</p><p>It’s Armie. Of course it is. He’s wearing a black t-shirt and carrying his own army-print duffel bag, which Matt takes gracelessly from him so he can shove it in the trunk with everything else.</p><p>“Armie, Ben doesn’t need to…”</p><p>“I’ll check in every now and then,” Ben promises.</p><p>“Well, so will I.” Armie raises his eyebrows meaningfully in Ben’s direction. “I promised him even before we came here that I’d visit him all the time. So, you know. We could hang out too.”</p><p>“I’d like that.”</p><p>“I know I’m about to leave, but let’s walk?”</p><p>Matt has now packed the trunk to his satisfaction and is loudly ripping fat strips of duct tape off the roll, and Brennan is helping to stick them on like this is a particularly absorbing art project, so they have a little time to themselves, just a little. The group that Ben is with is leaving shortly too, though that’s not for another half hour or so. Ben has managed to get everything cleaned up in his room in record time, and now it looks as blank and clean and empty as it did in the photos on the website. He can definitely take some time to walk with Armie, then scurry on back to his own cabin and get his stuff to load back into Rey’s SUV. They head aimlessly along the road, not moving too fast or out of eyeshot of the car.</p><p>“You really would like it?”</p><p>“Well, as long as you would.”</p><p>“We did talk about me coming to visit Brennan pretty regularly,” Armie says, like he doesn’t think Ben would have believed that. “Matt’s not going there, and so...I think he was kind of intimidated by the idea of really striking out on his own. I wanted to help. And the fact you’ll be there too, I dunno. It all feels like it’s meant to be.”</p><p>“Well, I hope you’ll make time to see me, too.”</p><p>“Maybe I’ll come more often than I planned to, you know? If you’d like it.”</p><p>“Armie.” Ben stifles his laughter, and takes Armie’s hand, like he’s going to make some solemn chivalrous vow. “I would really like it. I would like it a lot. I want to see you all the time. I hope you do come just to see me. Not that you should ignore Brennan or anything, but I wa--”</p><p>Before Ben can even finish what he’s saying, and really he’s rambling, no wonder Armie wants to cut it off, but before he can finish, Armie is kissing him, his breath rushed and his hands sweaty on the sides of Ben’s face. It is clearly an act that requires every ounce of courage that Armie has, and for a second Ben is frozen because he just can’t comprehend his luck, this was exactly the kind of opportunity that he’d been mourning the loss of on Thursday.</p><p>“I liked that, too,” Ben said, while Armie pulled away, his face defiant and guarded like he still isn’t sure he is allowed to be so close.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“You beat me to it.”</p><p>“What!”</p><p>“I wanted to do that from the second I saw you holding my telescope.”</p><p>“That can’t be true.”</p><p>“It is!” Ben protests, laughing again. “I’m not lying.”</p><p>“Well.” Armie finally allows himself to look pleased. “I’ll take your word for it, then.”</p><p>They have time for one more kiss before Matt gets the car started with a creaking roar that sounds, in a word, dangerous. Techie gives a joyful whoop, as if the car actually starting is cause for celebration.</p><p>“Okay. I’m going to go now,” Armie says, low and breathless, but it takes him a moment to really do it. “I’ll text you on the ride back!”</p><p>An understatement. By the time Ben runs up the hill and finds himself back in the gravel driveway at his own cabin, where everyone is slowly taking out trash and backpacks and suitcases and containers of snacks, his phone has already buzzed.</p><p>
  <em> Told you! </em>
</p><p>“Ben!”</p><p>That’s Finn, waving him over.</p><p>“We need a tiebreaker. We’re trying to pick where to get coffee.”</p><p>“Why are you so red?” Rey cuts in.</p><p>He hasn’t even realized how hot his face felt until she said something. He presses his hand to his head, as if trying to determine whether he has a fever. “Am I?”</p><p>“Your ears are like--”</p><p>“Rey, this is important,” Finn says with mocking grave seriousness. She raises her eyebrow knowingly at Ben, but doesn’t ask any more.</p><p>“Oh, anything is good with me.”</p><p>“That’s not a tiebreaker.”</p><p>“Whatever side Finn is on, then, because I know Rey will hate it.”</p><p>“Hey!” she shrieks while Finn cheers. “And you still haven’t paid for my sweater yet! Insult to injury!”</p><p>“That sweater was falling apart!” he calls. “I did you a damn favor!”</p><p>He darts into the house, pretending to escape her wrath, but really he’s just getting his things from the bedroom and taking a moment to respond to Armie’s message.</p><p>
  <em> You sure told me, huh? I wasn’t even expecting a message yet. Hey, if the weather’s good the second week of September, there’s supposed to be a really clear meteor shower. Why don’t you come up to Twin Sun then? </em>
</p><p>He shoulders his bag, and stands waiting, knowing it will only take a moment to get an answer.</p><p>
  <em> It’s a date. </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I can't thank alleistar enough for being such a great partner! It was great being able to discuss the story in such depth and get so much fantastic art in return. A legend! A genius! A star!</p><p>And thanks so much to the mods of this year's KBB for being so incredibly organized and flexible when life sometimes got in the way. I am in incredible company with this year's bang and I love it. </p><p>Let's chat on Twitter! I'm <a href="https://twitter.com/thefoxeswedding">@thefoxeswedding</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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